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Bladder stone prevention

O

OM91

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi everyone.

Our 6 year old piggie Bunny (I know - the children at my work chose the name) unfortunately came down with bladder stones.

At the end of July, a stone was blocking his urethra but was removed manually.

A couple of weeks later, an x-ray revealed three more stones (one big, two small), which were removed through surgery.

Our concern is that he may now be susceptible to them, so we've been taking the following precautions:

- Low calcium veggies (cucumber, coriander, green bell peppers);

- Bottled water only (we tried filtered water between stone removals but didn't seem to make much of a difference);

- Urinary support supplement;

- Water provided in both a bowl and a bottle.

We were wondering: is there anything else we can do to prevent further stones?

We saw some mentions of hydrochlorothiazide (a diuretic) and Metacam.

He's spent his whole life looking after his blind buddy (who sadly passed away last year) that we want to make sure his life is of as high a quality and lengthy as possible.

Thank you in advance!
 
I’m sorry to hear about the stones.

It takes many weeks for diet changes to have any effect on the calcium levels in the body. Therefore changing the water if it was only weeks between stones would probably not have been enough time for it to have had any effect.
Diet changes also will not have any effect on any stones already formed.

You are doing everything we would suggest regarding diet.
Diuretics such as frusol can sometimes to help. It is worth discussing with your vet.

Wiebke's Guide to Pees and Stones
 
Piggies&buns said:
I’m sorry to hear about the stones.

It takes many weeks for diet changes to have any effect on the calcium levels in the body. Therefore changing the water if it was only weeks between stones would probably not have been enough time for it to have had any effect.
Diet changes also will not have any effect on any stones already formed.

You are doing everything we would suggest regarding diet.
Diuretics such as frusol can sometimes to help. It is worth discussing with your vet.

Wiebke's Guide to Pees and Stones
Click to expand...
This is really helpful. We'll mention frusol to his vet at his check up on Monday. Thank you so much!
 
After the surgery, a visit to the emergency vet revealed at least two more stones (one 0.5cm and one smaller).

His regular vet did a urinalysis last Monday which showed high calcium but they didn't give us the result.

The vet agreed that another surgery would be unethical and wasn't sure if the stones could be dissolved.

So far, we're giving him:

- 0.1ml gabapentin and 0.1ml buprenorphine every 8 hours for the pain;

- 0.35ml Metacam twice daily (also for pain);

- 0.4ml Baytril for a possible ongoing infection;

- 0.06ml potassium citrate and half a capsule. of Cystaid twice daily.

He has an appointment at Trinity (a guinea pig specialist) tomorrow afternoon.

The emergency vet (a fantastic vet, by the way) has suggested that if the stone does be up blocking the urethra, there's a possibility that it can be squeezed out but we're prepared for the worst.
 
Bunny was recommended by a guinea pig specialist to have a second surgery to remove the stones.

We hope these will be the final stones he has to deal with.
 
OM91 said:
Hi everyone.

Our 6 year old piggie Bunny (I know - the children at my work chose the name) unfortunately came down with bladder stones.

At the end of July, a stone was blocking his urethra but was removed manually.

A couple of weeks later, an x-ray revealed three more stones (one big, two small), which were removed through surgery.

Our concern is that he may now be susceptible to them, so we've been taking the following precautions:

- Low calcium veggies (cucumber, coriander, green bell peppers);

- Bottled water only (we tried filtered water between stone removals but didn't seem to make much of a difference);

- Urinary support supplement;

- Water provided in both a bowl and a bottle.

We were wondering: is there anything else we can do to prevent further stones?

We saw some mentions of hydrochlorothiazide (a diuretic) and Metacam.

He's spent his whole life looking after his blind buddy (who sadly passed away last year) that we want to make sure his life is of as high a quality and lengthy as possible.

Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
Mine love a lot of high calcium veg like parsley etc., and they also love their pellets, so I probably give them a little bit more than a tbsp full! They also don't drink any water from a bowl or bottle, so I always give them extra wet veg (with low calcium bottled water and I add a tiny amount of magnesium flakes to this too, to increase their magnesium which dissolves extra calcium!) and lots of cucumber throughout the day!

I'm really into frequency healing too, play this Calcium Balancing RIFE and these Bladder Cleansing frequencies regularly (daily for the calcium balancing one!) and so far no stones.......Doesn't mean it will never happen, but I do feel better playing these and hope they WILL be a good preventative! 🙏

Calcium Balancing:
Healing Frequency to Balance Calcium in the Blood - Spooky2 Rife Frequency Healing

Bladder Healing:
Heilende Frequenzen für die Blase. - Blase heilen & reinigen (Rife-Frequenz 352 Hz)
Healing Frequency for Bladder - Spooky2 Rife Frequency Healing
🙏
 
Storm1974 said:
Mine love a lot of high calcium veg like parsley etc., and they also love their pellets, so I probably give them a little bit more than a tbsp full! They also don't drink any water from a bowl or bottle, so I always give them extra wet veg (with low calcium bottled water and I add a tiny amount of magnesium flakes to this too, to increase their magnesium which dissolves extra calcium!) and lots of cucumber throughout the day!

I'm really into frequency healing too, play this Calcium Balancing RIFE and these Bladder Cleansing frequencies regularly (daily for the calcium balancing one!) and so far no stones.......Doesn't mean it will never happen, but I do feel better playing these and hope they WILL be a good preventative! 🙏

Calcium Balancing:
Healing Frequency to Balance Calcium in the Blood - Spooky2 Rife Frequency Healing

Bladder Healing:
Heilende Frequenzen für die Blase. - Blase heilen & reinigen (Rife-Frequenz 352 Hz)
Healing Frequency for Bladder - Spooky2 Rife Frequency Healing
🙏
Click to expand...
This is really helpful! Thank you! We didn't know about the magnesium flakes and the frequencies.

We'll throw everything we can at getting rid of the stones at this point.
 
A slice of spring greens once a week is recommended on the diet guides for magnesium intake.

Remember going too low on calcium intake can be just as bad, but there is also the genetic predisposition and unfortunately if he producing stones so quickly then that may be what you are looking at.

The other thing you can try is to cut the pellets out entirely and then make sure to give a little calcium veg.
I don’t feed pellets at all, I feed a bit more than once cup of veg per day, and I do give high calcium veggies and we don’t have bladder issues here. A wet diet ie through giving a bit more veg (the amount of extra water consumed by wetting veg before feeding them is negligible) can help with fluid intake.

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
 
OM91 said:
This is really helpful! Thank you! We didn't know about the magnesium flakes and the frequencies.

We'll throw everything we can at getting rid of the stones at this point.
Click to expand...
You are very welcome! 😉

Best of luck and really hope they help!
https://www.jrnjournal.org/article/S1051-2276(24)00137-7/abstract

I know this article refers to 'kidney' stones, but I suspect as magnesium dissolves excess calcium, it could definitely work for bladder stone prevention, as well!
How Magnesium Supplements Prevent Stones and Support Kidney Health

Explains about Magnesium here...
Natural Remedies to Dissolve Calcium Deposits in the Body
 
Storm1974 said:
You are very welcome! 😉

Best of luck and really hope they help!
https://www.jrnjournal.org/article/S1051-2276(24)00137-7/abstract

I know this article refers to 'kidney' stones, but I suspect as magnesium dissolves excess calcium, it could definitely work for bladder stone prevention, as well!
How Magnesium Supplements Prevent Stones and Support Kidney Health

Explains about Magnesium here...
Natural Remedies to Dissolve Calcium Deposits in the Body
Click to expand...
This is really helpful! Thank you so much!
 
Bunny has had blood tests and an x-ray. It looks like stones haven't grown and there are no new stones.

He's also clear of kidney failure.

He'll be having the stones removed on Friday and will then, hopefully, be clear.

For pain, he's taking:
- 0.35ml Metacam twice a day;
- 0.3ml gabapentin three times a day;
- 0.2ml buprenorphine three times a day.

To prevent infections, he's taking:
- 0.4ml Baytril twice a day.

He's also taking 0.06ml of potassium citrate twice a day on prevent calcium build up and half a capsule of Cystaid for cats twice a day to protect his bladder.

He has one Oxbow urinary support tablet a day and regular low calcium and watery veggies (cucumber, courgette, some coriander soaked in water).

With also swapped his Timothy hay for oat hay as it's lower in calcium.

He's been drinking Volvic bottled water as other bottled waters seem to have more calcium.
 
OM91 said:
Bunny has had blood tests and an x-ray. It looks like stones haven't grown and there are no new stones.

He's also clear of kidney failure.

He'll be having the stones removed on Friday and will then, hopefully, be clear.

For pain, he's taking:
- 0.35ml Metacam twice a day;
- 0.3ml gabapentin three times a day;
- 0.2ml buprenorphine three times a day.

To prevent infections, he's taking:
- 0.4ml Baytril twice a day.

He's also taking 0.06ml of potassium citrate twice a day on prevent calcium build up and half a capsule of Cystaid for cats twice a day to protect his bladder.

He has one Oxbow urinary support tablet a day and regular low calcium and watery veggies (cucumber, courgette, some coriander soaked in water).

With also swapped his Timothy hay for oat hay as it's lower in calcium.

He's been drinking Volvic bottled water as other bottled waters seem to have more calcium.
Click to expand...
We buy Tesco Ashbeck bottled water as it only contains 17mgs of calcium which is the lowest I've ever found!

But if you need to keep using the Volvic, then just add a few flakes of magnesium to the water and that will give you a bit more magnesium added to the ratio. We buy ours from Ebay....Zechstein is the purest and you could also make some magnesium oil for yourself (as I do), as most of us are deficient in magnesium nowadays, and it's involved in up to 700 functions in the body!

Best of luck for Friday! 😉 🤞🤞🙏 🙏
 
Thank you so much everyone! Bunny got the surgery just in time - one of the stones had started to block his urethra.

He's recovering well and is one the same regimen of medication for now.

We have noticed that some of his wees are looking very powdery but we're hoping that's the potassium citrate doing its job, with the calcium binding to his urine rather than sitting in the bladder.

Thank you all so much for your advice and kind words of support. It genuinely means a lot.
 

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Bunny has been doing really well. The last couple of weeks have seen some pain but today he has had pure blood in his urine.

We're currently at the emergency vets and considering that this may be it for our little fighter. As tough as it is, we know he's done so well.
 

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